A world view

Day 58: Friday 31 March No-one likes to be challenged on their world view. When someone challenges us on our beliefs we might arc up. Resist the suggestion and block our ears. It’s called psychological reactance. The thing is I know this. I know how much I hate people telling me what to do, believe […]

To lead or not to lead

Day 56: Wednesday 29 March Leadership is not for everyone. I think that’s easy to forget in an aspirational culture. I love Derek Siver’s observation that being a follower is an important leadership role too. Sometimes it’s OK to follow and not feel like you need to lead. Leadership takes bandwidth and it might be […]

To blog or not to blog

Day 50: Tuesday 21 March The last two days have seen me write two half blog posts. There’s some good bits in both and maybe there’s the germ of a good idea in both. But I found myself thinking half-way through, Is this useful or me being clever? The answer is both, but I didn’t […]

Important v valuable

Day 14: Friday 27 January Fridays are seldom the most productive day, especially a Friday after a pubic holiday. The trick for me is to keep working on something constructive, if not important. Being creative, learning or just getting ideas and copy written down. Just keep going and avoid voids in the day. To be […]

About this [b]log

At the end of each year I review the past year and start to plan out the following one. Over the last few years I’ve done this practice alongside my friends Mary Freer, Kirsty Stark and Peter Shepherd. We support and coach each other in our work. They inspire, support, motivate me to do better […]

The agenda

Daily accountability posts At the end of every day I work I will briefly post about my day. It’s intended to be a quick 5 minute exercise. It’s to be easy, not burdensome, otherwise I won’t do it. Typically only on weekdays. For accountability I will flag ahead of time days I’m on holidays or […]

2023 Goals

These are the relevant goals for my year, for a level of accountability. They’re a starting point, not so much an end point. I may come back and tweak or add, but I’ll always call out any edits.

About Michael

Michael Lewarne

Hi I’m Michael and I’m a ‘Rebel’* I’ve questioned how architectural practice can be better throughout my architectural career.Meditated on the rare value of an architect’s skills. How to develop and better utilise them.And studied leadership and human skills – aka ‘soft skills’ (soft not soft). I quit architectural practice a few years ago.It wasn’t […]